House Arrest (5 page)

5 ~Pippa

The city bus bumped against the curb in front of Forest Park. Pippa stroked a soft spiral under the rough wool of her pea coat. “It’s okay,” she whispered to her belly.

Francie didn’t react to the jolt or the whisper. She had refused to explain what was happening at the Tea Room, but it must be pretty bad to get her out of her bathrobe after working all night. Pippa leaned her cheek against the window and watched the green and red holiday decorations on the elementary school flapping in the wind. She was glad to be out of the house, even heading towards something ugly at the Tea Room. Passing Forest Park, she turned her face away. She hadn’t set foot in the park since it happened. She had begged off participating in the June Teardrop ritual, unable to return to that sacred, awful place. After the bodies were found in late August, she wanted to see the deep gully their own search had missed. Twice she got as far as the bronze arch, but she couldn’t walk under it.

Pippa snuck a glance at Francie. Did she mourn their babies every day too?

At the “X,” where three main streets intersected at the commercial heart of the neighborhood, Francie tugged on the stop cord. Pippa followed her down the steps, plucking the clingy fabric of her skirt so the hem hung over her ankles. She had borrowed a pair of Tian’s rag wool socks to cover the bulge at her the ankle. On the sidewalk, Pippa forgot all about hiding her house arrest monitor.

The House of Isis sign stretched across the top third of the storefront. Murphy and Adele had painted the huge wings of the Egyptian goddess sheltering her baby and the cat-god Bast. It matched the painting inside the Tea Room, hung on the brick wall shared with the barbershop next door, and the one over the fireplace at home.

Tar splattered Isis. The viscous, black liquid dripped from her face into the crevice between her breasts and onto the beige stucco wall. Bundled in Marshall’s oversized sweatshirt and perched on a ladder, Liz scrubbed at the mess. The part she had already scoured was still veiled by a gray film.

“Great, huh?” Liz removed her glasses and wiped her glistening face with her sleeve.

“Tar,” Francie muttered. “Terrific. Where are the feathers?”

Pippa remembered talk back home about tar and feather parties. There was a blackened tree stump behind the five-and-dime; kids said that’s where the night-riders brought the men who needed to be taught a lesson. Her teachers said those days were over.

“I’m glad you guys are finally here. Adele couldn’t take it and she split.” Liz looked down at Pippa. “Get the cookies, will you? The timer just buzzed.” She tossed the rag down into the bucket on the sidewalk. “I’ll be right in.”

Turning away from the filthy bucket, Pippa pushed open the heavy glass door and stepped into the aroma of baking molasses. She pulled out two trays of cookies, dark with carob and plump with cranberries, and set them on the butcher block counter to cool. Usually at one-thirty, late lunchers and neighborhood shoppers were still enjoying tea and cookies. That afternoon the Tea Room was empty.

Liz pushed through the front door, soiled rags in one hand and bucket in the other. “I’ve had enough,” she said. “I’m going home.”

“Why today?” Pippa asked. “Was there another story in the paper?”

“Who knows? Maybe they spent weeks planning this. There was a spray-painted message too—
Keep devil cults out of Forest Park.
” Liz dumped the dirty water into the sink and ran the faucets full blast. “Francie went next door to see if Mario heard anything.

The baking smell reminded Pippa that she had only eaten half a bowl of soup for lunch. She tested the cookies with a spatula, but they were still too soft.

Liz soaped her hands. “For some reason, the defaced sign made our loyal customers decide they didn’t want tea today.”

“What did you do when you found it?”

“We didn’t call the cops, if that’s what you mean. They’d be worse than graffiti.” Liz pushed her round glasses back up the slant of her nose, leaving a perfect circle of soapsuds on the nosepiece. “I baked cookies. Adele scrubbed the sign and graffiti. She was pretty freaked out, you know how she’s been since the miscarriage. When she left, I called Francie. I knew you’d get here sooner or later, but I didn’t want to be here alone.”

Pippa shook her head. “If I leave the house a minute before one o’clock, the monitor will turn me in.”

“Well, some of us don’t rate shortened work days, just for being pregnant,” Liz said.

That wasn’t fair. One minute her pregnant body was a sacred vessel, a crucible for the solstice ceremony. The next minute it was her fault the court said her baby was at risk.

Liz flung Marshall’s soiled sweatshirt on the floor. “I’m out of here.”

After she left, the room was too quiet. Pippa switched on the stereo, turned the sweatshirt right side out, and hung it on the empty hook between the potter’s wheel and the music stool. Before her arrest, Murphy used to sit on the stool and play odd medleys of Celtic tunes and Yiddish melodies on the psaltery, which she insisted was as old as Isis. Customers loved to watch Murphy dance the bow over the strange-looking instrument and often ordered another pot of tea or plate of cookies just to sit longer and listen.

Pippa climbed onto Murphy’s stool. Where was the psaltery now?

She breathed in the steamy carob aroma, remembering the first time Francie brought her to the Tea Room four years earlier. Liz had been baking cookies that day, too. The morning sunlight had shimmered through the plate glass window and the scent from the oven smelled like home.

After that first day, Pippa lived at the Tea Room for almost a month, visiting Pioneer Street for meals and showers. Daytimes, she worked with Liz and Murphy and Adele, baking cookies and serving tea in Francie’s handmade mugs, selling organic teas and herbs, homegrown and slow-dried hanging upside down. In the long evenings, Francie pulled the shades closed and held class about their Isis beliefs and traditions, and all the major world religions.

“Why do I need to know this stuff?” Pippa had once asked.

Francie looked up from measuring spearmint tea leaves into plastic bags. “Most people are born into a faith and never question it. Tian researched religions and utopian societies. Then, he chose Isis and she chose him. If you want to live in our family, you have to choose her too.”

“Why utopian? That means perfect, doesn’t it?” Pippa tied a green ribbon around the last bag of tea leaves.

“Nothing’s perfect,” Francie said. “But Tian wanted to avoid the biggest mistakes that other groups have made.”

When Francie left for the graveyard shift at the hospital, Pippa slept in the back room on a cot between shelves of restaurant-sized mayonnaise jars filled with herbs and teas and spices. Her feet were warmed by the small kiln, where they fired the earthenware teapots and cups glazed with images of Isis and Bast.

What would they do if the customers stayed away?

Pippa slipped off the stool and checked the cookies. They were cool enough to transfer into a wide glass bowl. She brushed the crumbs from the cookie sheets and dropped small balls of raw dough in even lines. She imagined Tian sitting in the hush of a public library studying old religions and utopias. What kinds of mistakes did other people make?

But their community hadn’t worked for everyone, either. Soon after Pippa joined, Meg and Enoch left with their three kids. No one would tell her what all their arguments with Tian were about, but they didn’t find the family so perfect.

Francie brought a whiff of burnt tar into the room. “Mario said the sign was already vandalized when he opened at seven,” she said. “I doubt if any customers will come today, but we should stay open, just to show them we’re not intimidated.”

Pippa wondered if Francie was really as brave as her words. Maybe a brick through the window would be next.

“When the cookies are done, why don’t you work on the sign,” Francie said. “I’ll get started on the next batch of teapots. If business stays slow, we may have to sell our pots and tea through other stores.”

Francie scooped two large handfuls of clay from the barrel next to the potter’s wheel and slapped them onto the kneading board. Pippa watched her body move into the rhythm of working the clay. Lubricating the particles, Francie had explained, so the clay will dance. After a few minutes, Francie seemed satisfied and placed a handful on the throwing head. Positioning herself on the plastic seat, she kicked the concrete wheel hard five or six times until it spun and hummed. She dipped her hands in the water bucket, pulled the spinning gray clump into a tall column, then squashed it down.

Pippa washed the empty bowl at the sink, still smarting from Liz’s comment. Her probation officer said that the judge had an insane soft spot for motherhood, and her pregnancy was the only reason Pippa wasn’t in jail too. She turned to Francie, trying to keep the whine out of her voice.

“Liz was really mean to me just now, about only working afternoons. That’s not fair. If I weren’t pregnant, I’d be in jail. Then you would really be short-staffed.”

Francie lifted her hands from the wheel, displaying the glistening clay gloves extending past her delicate wrists. “Fix my hair, Pippa? It’s in my eyes.”

Pippa chose a pink scrunchy from the teacup on the window sill and gathered Francie’s hair. Touching the silky curls made her throat thicken. Pippa’s first month in the family, when she and Francie spent so much time together, Francie would let Pippa brush and braid her hair, like the sister she always wanted. She fastened the scrunchy around the ponytail, and turned back to the oven.

“It’s more than the part-time work.” While she spoke, Francie focused on the gray shape that was growing curved walls. “People are upset that ever since you joined, you’ve gotten special treatment. Like having Tian mostly to yourself.”

Pippa took the last batch of cookies from the oven, holding the hot tray with a dishtowel. What did Francie mean by mostly?

“It’s been tough on everyone.” Francie flared the spinning walls out and then drew them in to form the neck. “With Tian and Murphy in jail and Marshall doing the home schooling and Adele still upset about the miscarriage, and me working nights, and you with short hours.” She paused for a breath before continuing. “Plus we’re all nervous about the hearing coming up. And then you bring that nurse home to spy on us.”

That wasn’t fair, blaming her for the nurse. “I didn’t ask for her to come. I’m the one who has to put up with her nosiness, and her stupid advice. How do you think I feel?”

“How do you feel?” Francie looked up from the pregnant teapot shape emerging between her hands.

Francie’s fingers looked so competent, so certain. Pippa longed to make those buoyant shapes out of clay. One day during Pippa’s first winter, Francie started to teach her to throw pots, but Pippa had been impossibly clumsy. They laughed so hard during the first lesson and had so much fun that Pippa thought maybe they would become real friends.

“I’m not sure,” she said to the back of Francie’s head. Mostly she still felt numb. “I’m worried about this thing on my ankle, and how I can dance at the solstice. About keeping my baby. And I’m lonely, I guess.”

“Lonely? We’re your family.”

“No one in this so-called family has tried to help me with this house arrest. No one will even talk about Abby.” Pippa wished she felt better, getting that off her chest. Instead, now she felt lonely and scared. She scooped a still-soft cookie off the metal sheet with the spatula, pulling it into two pieces. She held half out to Francie.

Francie opened her mouth for the cookie, then touched Pippa’s hand, leaving two earth-colored fingerprints.

“Thanks,” Francie said. “We make the best cookies in town.” She let the wheel slow, then used the wire with small wooden handles at both ends to separate the teapot from the metal surface.

“And the healthiest. Would you believe that nurse this morning tried to teach me about wholesome eating? She probably scarfs down meat and all sorts of processed crap and calls it a healthy diet.”

“Makes sense they’d send a carnivore. But what do you expect from a nurse working for the cops?” Francie smoothed the rim of the teapot with a wet chamois cloth, then lifted the glistening pot onto the drying shelf.

“She’s not that bad, doesn’t actually work for the cops. She kind of got under my skin.” Pippa grinned. “Like a chigger.” Francie looked blank, started centering a small lump of clay for the teapot spout. Right, they didn’t have chiggers in Massachusetts.

At least Liz grew up in Virginia, and knew about things like chiggers and sweetshrub and copperheads hiding in autumn leaves. They didn’t talk much on Pioneer Street about where they came from. Pippa knew few details about Tian’s old life, except that he and Marshall had been in opposing gangs in Newark until something awful happened, something to do with Tian’s little sister and the bandana Marshall always wore. But occasionally, when it was just her and Liz in the storefront and business was slow, they would trade crazy stories, remembering the good parts of growing up in the south. Or the simple parts, like chiggers.

“The nurse wasn’t too bad,” Pippa said again. “Besides.” She stopped talking and concentrated on transferring the fragile cookies to the bowl.

“Besides what?”

“None of you guys seem interested in helping me get out of this shackle for the solstice.” Pippa placed the spatula carefully on the counter, lining it up next to the cookie bowl, and finally looked right at Francie. “Much as the idea makes me queasy, I think I’m going to need her help.”